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Monday, December 17, 2012

CWA: Not Your Average Senior Life

The cold winter winds of the Great Lakes crash into the side of the cruiseship while the sun plays with you mind. It was so beautiful outside with its slightly cleared skies. The sun highlighted the clouds as if heaven had decided to give you your own personal light show. It has been raining nonstop all night and through the morning. The rain had followed your ship from Northern Ireland to Lake Huron as if the angels were weeping. You wondered if the angels wept because you had made the made the wrong decision. There was still time for you to change your mind. Tasha wasn't expecting an answer for a couple more days.

Suddenly as if your thoughts held meaning to the weather events, the rain stopped. The clouds part quickly over the horizon. You stare the cafeteria window wondering. Was that a sign you were on the right track?

"Ladies and gentlemen may I have you attention," Dalton announces from the front of the room. You turn to give him your full attention. "Now that the rain has stopped we can safely approach our next port. We will give you twenty minutes to finish your lunch. Afterwards, you will have ten minutes to prepare for the tour. Thank you."

Thirty minutes. You could do alot with thirty minutes.

Along the Great Lake Huron by: Jimmy Brown
@http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmybrown/6144373827/

I’m Agnes Barton and
I’m seventy-two and a private detective or senior snoop as most people call me.
I thought I’d stop by today and give you a tour of Tadium, MI, that’s on the
shores of Lake Huron. For those of you that don’t know, Lake Huron is on the
eastern side of Michigan.

Tadium is populated primarily of persons of a certain age
also called senior citizens. Fuzzy’s Ice Cream Shop is where my best friend Eleanor Mason and I love to eat. It’s a
real nice place to eat and throw down for an ice cream fight. We also have
another great place to shop called The Backdoor Store. It’s a bikini shop with
a backroom you have to be over eighteen to shop in, laughs.

We also have a bed and breakfast in town, Robinson’s Manor,
where an entire family was murdered twenty-eight years ago. It’s a cold case we
kinda got opened by default.

Whether you are looking to chill on the beach or have ice
cream, Tadium has all the things bigger cities have, we even have a little
crime now and then, but thanks to Eleanor and I it’s not for long and usually
solved.

One of the best things I like about my town is the small town appeal. Sure most folks know all your business, but it’s nice to see a friendly face or two. While most people think seniors should act their age I wonder if they think everyone over sixty should be lounging around in rocking chairs.

Armed and Outrageous

Senior sleuth — Grandma Mazur meets Murder She Wrote — cozy mystery.

Agnes Barton is not your typical senior citizen living in Tadium, MI, on the shores of Lake Huron. She drives a red hot Mustang, shops at Victoria's Secret, rankles local police officials, and has a knack for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

What does a murder that happened forty-three years ago have to do with missing tourist Jennifer Martin? Agnes makes it her personal mission to find out, and she's not letting the fact she's seventy-two get in the way. Butting heads with Sheriff Clem Peterson is something she's accustomed to, but lately Clem seems to be acting even more strange, making Agnes wonder what he may be hiding ala the Martin disappearance.

Together, they unearth clues. If only Eleanor would behave, as although lovable, she has a knack for getting into trouble by tangling with her rival, Dorothy Alton, or flirting with anyone—male or female—and gossiping! She's incorrigible, but she does carry a Pink Lady revolver in her purse, one that has proved useful at times.

Life for Agnes and Eleanor is shaken up when Agnes' former boss and secret crush comes to Tadium. Before long, the lady sleuths have more on their hands to contend with as goons roll into town and bullets begin to fly.

As
a child, Madison Johns preferred to distance herself from other children her
age, and had been described as a dreamer. Even as a small child, she remembers
staying awake many a night fighting dragons, whisked away to foreign lands, or
meeting the man of her dreams.

She
was a voracious reader of historical romance in her teen years and has always
wished to one day journey to England, France, Ireland, and Scotland.

The
writing bug bit her at the age of 44 and she pounded out three books since that
time. As the publishing climate changed she took a risk and decided to self
publish, first a collection of two horror short stories geared for YA, Coffin
Tales Season of Death.

Madison's
caring nature had led her to work in the healthcare field, where she was
employed as a nursing care assistant at a nursing home, and it was there that
she was inspired to write her first mystery, Armed and Outrageous, introducing
amateur detective Agnes Barton. The book depicts two elderly ladies digging up
clues with enough laugh out loud antics to make James Bond blush.